Uncivil War
by Signy1
Summary: Tensions are running high on the island, and everything comes to a head when a truly memorable argument breaks out over the dinner table. Terrible, horrible things are said. Battle lines are drawn. And the best laid plans of mice, men, and castaways gang aft agley. Very, very, *very* agley.
1. Chapter 1

Uncivil War

 _Island madness_ , the Professor called it. The Skipper just thought of it as going stir-crazy, and it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. Life on the island was an odd mixture of frustration, stress, and boredom, punctuated with the occasional bout of gut-churning terror, and no matter how you sliced it, trying to deal with the same few people, in very close quarters, day in and day out, could get real old, real fast.

Nobody was feeling all that chipper lately; that was for sure. The Howells were having one of their periodic spats, although, mercifully, neither of them had yet reached the point of moving out and inflicting themselves on their fellows. The girls were angry with each other about something arcane and female that the Skipper had absolutely no intention of exploring, especially not after what had happened to Gilligan. Who, in his defense, had been minding his own business when an argument consisting almost entirely of incomprehensible half sentences and innuendo had spilled into the common area late that afternoon. Asked to settle the question, (and without bothering to inform him what said question was,) he had refused to take sides. His attempt at diplomacy had only gotten him slapped by _both_ of them, one on each cheek in rapid succession. He had promptly decamped for the lagoon and hadn't been seen since, and the Skipper didn't blame him.

In fact, it might have been better for all concerned if he'd left earlier. The Professor had been in a real peach of a mood to begin with, probably because he had spent two days unsuccessfully trying to patch up the transmitter with components they had salvaged from a bizarre and unidentifiable device that was, inexplicably, in one of the nearby caves, and admitting defeat never brightened anyone's day. Gilligan had not improved either the situation, the tabletop, or the Professor's temper by accidentally knocking over a beaker full of improvised battery acid, and the Professor had used a lot of words that nobody else understood. That in and of itself wasn't unusual, but these words had sounded like the sort of thing you didn't want translated.

Skipper himself had been less than a model of pleasant behavior, and was rapidly losing patience with the world in general, on a fairly regular basis, with or without provocation; he was no saint, and he was feeling just as irritable as anyone else. There was only so much togetherness a person could take, and only so much coconut, too.

In short, they were all sitting squarely atop a powder keg with a lit match in either hand, and no fake séances were going to do the trick this time.

The inevitable explosion was a humdinger. Oh, it had been an average day all around, which is to say that there had been some accidents, a trodden foot or three, the aforementioned battery acid incident, and a great deal of inane chatter, but nothing spectacular in any sense of the word. Which is to say that, in the end, it wasn't really Gilligan that started it. No, it was an argument with Mr. Howell over the dinner table, the insidious sort of argument that starts out so minute that it's hard to remember what even began it, and rises up like a tidal wave, a tsunami of cruel cuts and old scores and vicious thrusts of the kind only an old friend knows how to deliver, precisely in the most vulnerable places with surgical exactitude.

And it ended where it always did. Mr. Howell, who, as he would be the first to tell you, was far too well-bred to shout, even when he was shouting, barked out a jeering, "I don't really see where you have much of a leg to stand on, Captain—we're only here on this miserable island because of your seamanship… or, rather, lack thereof!"

The Skipper, red-faced, bellowed back, "You mean instead of drowning? It's only because of my seamanship that we made it to land at all!"

"Balderdash! Face facts, Captain; of the seven of us here, five of us were huddled in steerage, well out of the way. You could at least have the decency to own up to your mistakes and take some responsibility!"

And then the Skipper said it. "Maybe you're right, Howell, maybe I should take responsibility for my actions. Maybe I am to blame for the whole mess—is that what you want to hear?"

"Captain, the only thing I want to hear is the traffic on Fifth Avenue. And if it weren't for you and your wretched little cruise, I'd be hearing it now."

Gilligan sucked in a sharp breath, affronted. "Mr. Howell! That's not true! It wasn't Skipper's fault!" He pounded the table for emphasis, knocking over the pitcher of mango juice, most of which ended up in the Skipper's lap.

The Skipper rounded on him. "No, he's right. It must be my fault. No one _forced_ me to hire you!"

A horrible silence fell over the table.

Gilligan put his fork neatly beside his plate of half-eaten dinner and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. And the worm turned. "That's true. No one forced you to hire me. No one forced me to take the job, either—I guess we _both_ fouled up!"

"You were grateful enough to have any kind of job, as I recall; who else in Hawaii was dumb enough to put up with your incompetence?"

"Who else in Hawaii was dumb enough to put up with your temper? They warned me about shipping out with Captain Bligh! I should've listened to them!"

"Captain Bligh, am I? Better that than Seaman Snafu!"

"Hey, I just do what you taught me. Not _my_ fault that you're just about as good a teacher as you are a navigator."

The fight veered off from there, and the other five castaways traded shocked glances, their own altercations forgotten. Watching the two sailors arguing—and watching Gilligan be deliberately cruel for quite possibly the first time in his life—was unsettling. There was a vague feeling that this was simply not how the world was supposed to be.

"…And another thing! If you don't get your junk out of the hut before sundown, you can look for it in the lagoon!"

"You're not throwing me out of my own hut!"

" _Your_ hut? I'm the captain, and you bunk wherever I _tell_ you to bunk!"

"Oh, no you don't! I did half the work building that hut, and I've got a right to half of it!"

"You're going to be missing half your _teeth_ in a minute! I need at least a few minutes each day where I don't have to deal with you; I've practically forgotten what peace and quiet sounds like!"

"Fine! Sure! Why not? You probably _do_ need the whole thing, 'cause you sure take up twice as much room as anyone else! And besides, the further away I can get, the less chance you'll have to crack me over the head every time things don't go your way!"

"If there was anything in your head to begin with, I wouldn't have to try pounding some sense in there. Some men just don't understand anything but the back of a hand, and let's face it—you're one of them!"

"The back of your hand is all you ever _try_. What's there to understand?"

"Plenty! John Paul Jones himself couldn't make you anything but what you are—the worst excuse for a sailor I've ever seen!"

"Says the guy who's never been on a ship that didn't sink. What was it, now? I know about the three in the Navy, and one here... Or were there some others I've forgotten?"

"You just watch your step, you insubordinate little rat. I ought to have you keelhauled!"

"Ha! Skipper, we haven't got a keel to haul!"

"For you, Gilligan, **_I'll build one!_** "

"If you could do _that_ , we wouldn't still **_BE_** here!"

The Skipper's face was redder than Gilligan's shirt, and, predictably, he snatched his cap from his head and swung it hard. "Next time I won't use the hat," he said between his teeth.

Gilligan stooped to retrieve his own cap, and, without stopping to consider the consequences, returned the favor. "Next time, maybe I won't, either," he spat.

"Get out of my sight before you make me do something we'll both regret," the Skipper snarled.

"Gladly, 'sir,'" Gilligan sneered back, with a salute so insubordinate that he might as well have flipped the bird and been done with it. They stalked away from the table in opposite directions.

OoOoOoOoO

Later, they met up in the jungle, near the waterfall.

"I think the girls were about ready to cry," the Skipper said. "And the Howells went back to their hut together, so they must have forgotten all about whatever they were arguing over."

"Oh, good," Gilligan said. "I think the Professor bought it, too. Anyway, it sure fooled everyone else." He raked his hair out of his eyes—he was overdue for a haircut—and frowned. "Skipper, are you sure there wasn't anything else we could have done? I really hate lying to everyone like this."

"I don't like it either, but I couldn't think of anything else," the Skipper admitted. "Everyone's been so edgy and miserable, we had to do something to distract them."

"I guess this was better than dressing up like headhunters or anything. But I do hate it," Gilligan said with a sigh.

The Skipper raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? You're going to tell me that you weren't having fun reaming me out?"

Gilligan shook his head vehemently. "Heck, no! All I could think about, the whole time, was how sore you'd get if I said any that stuff for real… and how sore I'd end up if you did!" He mimed taking a one-two combination of punches to the jaw, complete with sound effects. "They'd ship what was left of me back home in a matchbox!"

"Oh, come on, little buddy. Don't be so dramatic. They'd need a shoebox, at the very least," the Skipper chuckled. "You were coming up with some pretty sharp zingers, there. Don't you tell me you haven't ever thought about it before."

"Nah, I've just been getting chewed out by all kinds of experts for twenty years; I _ought_ to know some real awful insults by now. I was being Lieutenant Hoffman. Remember him?"

The Skipper shuddered. "I try not to. That guy was—twenty years?"

"Well, maybe more, but that's as far back as I remember," Gilligan said. "I thought about being Sister Evangelina, instead, but it just wouldn't have been the same without her yardstick. Let me tell you, she could have given Hank Aaron a run for his money."

The Skipper shook his head to clear it. "Right. Anyhow, let's figure this out. Remember, as far as anyone else knows, we're furious with each other. So I really will throw all your stuff out of the hut, I guess."

"No, if you do that, the Professor or the Howells will probably offer to let me bunk with one of them, and I'd spill the beans for sure. I'll go get all my stuff myself, and then hightail it to my cave," Gilligan said. "Besides, if you really did chuck me out, you'd look mean. If I leave on my own, I'll just look mad."

"Okay, that makes sense," the Skipper said. "Grab an extra blanket or two; it can get cold in those caves. We'll just glare a lot at breakfast; I don't think we need to have another fight."

"Good, I hated that. You want me to spill something on you again?"

"No, I don't want you to spill anything on me," the Skipper said, with some irony. "But that's never stopped you before. Surprise me."

What neither man knew was that Mary Ann, ever the peacemaker, had followed the Skipper to the waterfall, hoping that she could help. Neither of them saw her where she stood behind a clump of bamboo, listening to every word. And neither of them noticed when, her eyes blazing and her lips set in a determined line, she slipped away, back to camp and her shellshocked fellow castaways.

"…And that was when I left," she finished. "They planned the whole thing! Have you ever heard anything so mean and rotten?"

"Indeed! If there's anything I can't abide, it's deceit and deception," said Mr. Howell. "Those are the exclusive preserve of a Howell, and I won't stand for this encroachment on my territory!"

"Wait a moment, everyone," said the Professor. "As underhanded a plan as it indubitably was, we must be just and admit that their scheme worked. They wanted us to forget our differences, to resume working together, free from the friction that's been apparent these last few days. And would I be alone in saying that I believe that we have?"

"So you're saying we should just let them get away with it?" Ginger said.

"I'm saying that we should work together, exactly as they'd intended we should. After all, how else can we hope to exact a truly meaningful revenge?" His eyes glittered with mischief. "Now, here's what we'll do…"


	2. Chapter 2

The Skipper walked, somewhat tentatively, back into camp. He wasn't entirely sure what the emotional temperature was going to be like, after all. Their little performance had, so far as he'd been able to tell, shocked their friends into at least a temporary truce, but anything might have happened since, and no one had yet invented a mood barometer.

Mary Ann met him at the edge of the clearing, and she threw her arms around him. "Oh, Skipper, I'm so glad you're back! I was terribly afraid that you'd stay all alone out there!"

Startled, he patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Why on earth would I do a thing like that?"

"Oh, after all those horrible things at dinner… I never thought Gilligan could be so mean and cruel. And to you, of all people! Why, we couldn't survive here without you." She looked up at him, her brown eyes sparkling with tears. "You just forget everything he said. _I'm_ on your side, Skipper."

"Well, thank you, Mary Ann," he said. "I appreciate that."

"And don't you pay any mind to anything _she_ has to say, either," Mary Ann said poisonously.

"Wha—?"

"Oh, you know what that hussy's like," Mary Ann said. "Ignore her, too. She doesn't have the sense to come in from the rain." With that, she left, leaving him to stare after her with some confusion.

Confusion that was swiftly resolved when Ginger undulated out from the jungle, wrapped around a visibly horrified Gilligan. "Oh," she said coldly. "Skipper. I wouldn't have thought you'd dare to show your face around here. You're nothing but a bully and a blowhard, and I think we've all had just about enough of your stomping around like a petty tyrant."

Gilligan mouthed the word _Help_ before she turned her attention back to him. Placing a hand on his cheek and snuggling in even closer than before, she murmured, "Isn't that right, my darling? We're not going to let him push us around anymore, are we?"

"We're not?" He wasn't quite hitting notes only dogs could hear, but he was close.

"Certainly not," she said, pushing him back a step or two, safely away from any trees he might have used to knock himself unconscious; he wasn't getting away that easily. "You poor… brave… mistreated boy," she continued, fluttering gentle fingers over his face. "But don't you worry about a thing. Ginger's here to see to it that you get _exactly_ what you deserve. And I'll never leave your side," she breathed, raking her fingers through his hair and watching, with some satisfaction, as what blood he had left drained from his face… and not to go anywhere more interesting, either.

"Ah, Captain!" The Howells emerged from their hut. "My good fellow, I wanted to apologize for that little scene at dinner. Can't think what came over me," Mr. Howell said suavely. "No excuse for it, but do say you'll forgive and forget, won't you?"

"Well, ah— of course," he said. "We both got a little hot under the collar back there. No hard feelings."

"I can't say I've ever worn a collar like the one you've got on, but I take your point," Mr. Howell said, looking at the Skipper's worn polo shirt with some distaste. "After all, men like us have to stick together!"

"Men like us?"

"Absolutely! Leaders, Captain! Men who understand the burdens of command!" Mr. Howell clapped him on the shoulder. "And may I offer my sympathies. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a disloyal underling. I never trusted that shifty little creature; I always knew he'd turn on us sooner or later. It's in the nature of the breed."

"Oh, now that's going a bit far, Thurston darling," Mrs. Howell said. "The poor boy may not have the proper breeding, but he tries so very hard. You mustn't be cruel."

"Cruel? Lovey, dear, how can you defend such blatant treason? He may have beguiled you with that mask of wide-eyed innocence and boyish naiveté, but that sort of two-faced deception never fooled me for a moment."

"Oh, now that's just silly. If he were two-faced, why would he be wearing that one?"

Gilligan started, fairly sure that he'd been insulted on two fronts simultaneously, but before he could do anything about it, Ginger went back to caressing his left ear and he went back to praying for rescue. Or a bolt of lightning. Or an earthquake. Or anything; he wasn't in much of a position to be fussy. She sure had a strong grip, for a girl. He tried pulling away, with a bit more force this time, and completely changed his opinion. She had a strong grip for _anyone_. He'd been wrestled by gorillas that hadn't held him this tightly. He hadn't enjoyed _that_ , either.

"The fact remains, Lovey, our poor Captain has been viciously betrayed, and I for one don't intend to stand by as the entirety of the social order crumbles beneath our feet! These things must be nipped in the bud, I tell you. Today it's a harsh word, tomorrow it's _aristocrates á la lanterne!_ "

"Is that anything like chicken á la king?"

"Yes, except we're the chickens. I tell you, revolution is in the wind!"

"That's just Ginger's perfume. You're being terribly overdramatic, darling. And Captain, I don't like to criticize, but you really were being dreadfully harsh, and I don't blame the poor boy one bit for standing up for himself."

"Do my ears deceive me?" Mr. Howell—and yes, terribly overdramatically—clasped a hand to his heart. "Mrs. Howell! You, of all people, should understand the vital importance of preserving the natural order of things! The great and the small! The strong and the weak! We command, and the little people obey! Otherwise all is chaos, my dear, chaos!"

"Oh, pooh," she said comprehensively. "I don't believe a word of it."

"Treachery! In the bosom of my own family! Oh, that I've lived to see this day!" He glared at Gilligan. "And so it begins!" He stomped away, winking at Ginger as he went past.

Mrs. Howell, smothering a smile, fixed the Skipper with a censorious expression the likes of which he hadn't seen since his grandmother had caught him with the remains of a chocolate cake that had been intended for Thanksgiving dessert. "Now look at what you've done. Captain, I'd thought better of you."

"Me? What did I do?" _Good grief,_ he thought _. I sound like Gilligan_.

"Oh, really, Captain, there's no point in discussing it if you're not willing to be honest with me. I absolutely loathe a dissembler." She swept away, all offended hauteur and palpable disapproval.

Ginger, never one to miss a cue, took the opportunity to stage-whisper, "We'd all thought better of the Skipper… but I guess we were wrong." She kissed a fingertip, ran it down his nose to the dent above his lip, and watched him stop breathing.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Ginger," the Professor said, looking up from some dull-looking tome just in time to catch that. "The Skipper's guilty of nothing more heinous than attempting to maintain the unity and discipline necessary to ensure our continued survival. Survival that Gilligan's behavior directly threatened. Given the precarious nature of our situation, the slightest deviation from our established chain of command could prove fatal. Surely even you can comprehend that the Skipper had no choice but to maintain the status quo?"

"Oh, you just think you're so smart, with all your fancy words and your Latin," Ginger said venomously.

"I don't _think_ I'm so smart," the Professor snorted. "I _know_. And if you had a thought in your pretty little head beyond couture and cosmetics, perhaps I could explain it in terms you could understand—"

Shaking his head, the Skipper slipped into his hut before anyone else could either attack or defend; both were proving equally unpleasant. Gilligan managed to twist himself free from Ginger's fond—and very firm—embrace while she was concentrating on returning fire on the Professor, and ran in after him.

"Gimme my bag," he panted. "I gotta get out of here before Ginger tries to help some more." He snatched his duffel, stuffed his blanket and spare clothes into it. "Think you can distract her long enough for me to escape?"

"I'll give it a shot," the Skipper promised, uneasy. This wasn't going at all like he'd planned. "Maybe some yelling will do the trick."

"I'll try anything," Gilligan said fervently. Staged fights, it seemed, had suddenly become the lesser of two evils. He cleared his throat. "Oh, you can stick it where the sun don't shine," he hollered, and threw open the door. "I don't have to take any more of this!"

"Er… You took the words right out of my mouth! Get lost, and don't expect me to come looking for you, either!" he shouted back, following him into the common area.

"It's about the only thing anyone ever _did_ take out of your mouth, then!" Gilligan had made it to the edge of the clearing by that point, and with that Parthian shot, vanished into the underbrush, well ahead of Ginger.

The Skipper plastered a scowl across his face, and returned to his hut, slamming the door shut behind him. To the extent that a bamboo screen door on a vine hinge _could_ slam, which wasn't much. This was definitely not going the way he'd pictured, but at least his little buddy had gotten away before he'd given himself a heart attack. Perhaps things would be better in the morning.

OoOoOoO

They weren't.

If there was a bright spot to be found in this whole ever-spiraling disaster, and he was trying really, really hard to find one, it was that the resident chef had decided that she was on his side, the Skipper mused, looking at the well-filled plate before him and wishing that he could even pretend to enjoy it. Gilligan had been allotted a portion consisting entirely of the burnt ends of whatever the rest of them were eating, and the glare Mary Ann had given him as she'd dropped the dish in front of him—all but daring him to object— would have been enough to poison gourmet cuisine.

Ginger had taken violent exception to that, but had chosen to address the problem by hand-feeding him tidbits from her own plate, which had gone over about like one might have expected; Gilligan looked as though he would have preferred the poison, but every time he'd opened his mouth to object, Ginger shoved something into it, and he could either chew or choke. He was effectively out of the conversation.

Of course, the rest of them were, too, by virtue of the fact that Mr. Howell had decided to monopolize the floor by delivering a monologue consisting mainly of long and vindictive descriptions of the various unsatisfactory employees with which he had been forced to grapple over the years, complete with accounts of the terrible fates to which they had succumbed. It wasn't doing much for the Skipper's appetite, or, for that matter, digestion, and he was quite sure that it wasn't doing his first mate any good, either. A racy little anecdote about the embezzling clerk who had gotten twenty-five years in Attica from a judge who just happened to be a fellow Harvard alumnus—purely coincidental, of course, wink wink—had all but finished them both.

The Professor picked up where Mr. Howell left off. "I think we can all agree that the key to our survival is our cooperation," he began in his most serious lecture tones. "Therefore, it seems apparent to me that our only option is to settle things here and now. Are we agreed?"

A ragged chorus of mutters from around the table, bearing various levels of resentment, indicated that, while agreement was in no sense of the word wholehearted, it was, to some degree, at least present.

"Very well," the Professor said sternly. His glance flicked to Ginger. "An apology would seem the logical place to begin. Gilligan, whenever you're ready."

"Mmrph mmv mmpph?!" The oversized lump of breadfruit muffin Ginger had popped into his mouth effectively stifled whatever he'd intended to say. Not that it mattered.

"Professor, I'm surprised at you," Mrs. Howell said indignantly. "You're every bit the bully the Captain is!"

"Mrs. Howell, kindly stay out of this," the Professor said briefly.

"Now see here! I won't have you talking to my wife in that tone! In fact, don't talk to my wife at all!"

"Thurston, don't be so tiresome. I'll talk to whomever I please!"

"You tell him, Mrs. Howell! Men! They're all the same; they think they can push us around. Well, not this woman, not anymore," Ginger said.

"First time she's ever had an unkind word to say about a man," Mary Ann told the world in general, not bothering to lower her voice.

Very casually, Gilligan, his mouth still full of muffin, eased himself off the bench and began edging away. This was beyond his ken, beyond his pay grade, and, actually, beyond him in general. And if he stuck around here much longer, he had the sinking feeling he was going to get slapped again.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Mr. Howell snapped.

Gilligan gulped down the last of the breadfruit, and looked around. He snatched a bucket, quite obviously at random. "The, ah… the water tastes kinda funny. I'm gonna go get some fresh before we all end up spending the day wishing we'd stuck with the pineapple juice." He remembered then that _he_ was supposed to be angry, too, so he tacked on, as sarcastically as he could manage, "If that's okay with you?"

"I suppose that's just about within your capabilities," the Skipper growled, letting him off the hook. "Get moving!"

Gilligan tried to salute, unfortunately with the hand holding the bucket, with about as much success as one might have imagined, and scampered off into the jungle before his eyes had quite uncrossed.

The Skipper rolled his eyes, and got up from the table himself. "I give up," he said. "The boy's hopeless. Great breakfast, Mary Ann; thanks." He walked into the jungle himself, and doubled back as soon as he was sure he was out of sight of the others.

He found Gilligan by the well; he looked like a rabbit at a hawk convention. "Hey, little buddy," he murmured. "When did we lose control of this whole fiasco?"

"I've got a better question, Skipper. When were we ever _in_ control?"

The Skipper hunched his shoulders sheepishly. He didn't like admitting defeat, but… "Yeah. We need to abort this mission, pronto."

"How?" His voice had gone up an octave by this point, and he didn't even care. "Go back and tell everyone that we lied to them? They'll kill us both. The whole idea was that everyone should _stop_ being mad, not to make everyone madder than they were to begin with."

The Skipper grimaced. "I don't know. We'll think of something, though. We've just got to stay calm."

"Stay _calm_? Skipper, this _is_ calm. You don't want to see me getting excited!"

"Take it easy! We'll figure something out."

OoOoOoO

Back at the camp, the other five were finally able to let out the only slightly malicious laughter they'd been holding in for the duration of the meal.

"Did you see the looks on their _faces_?" Mary Ann giggled.

The Professor chuckled. "I most certainly did," he said. "Well done, everybody. Now, when they come back, we should all have shifted our alliances, and in the least logical manner. Who should begin?"


	3. Chapter 3

Mary Ann served the Skipper's dinner personally. It consisted of the head and tail of a fish about three days past its 'best by' date and a banana peel. He got the message. What he didn't get was the same sort of treatment Gilligan had gotten at breakfast, because Ginger had not, much to the chagrin of all concerned, switched sides the way most of the others had. It figured.

The conversation was even more virulent than it had been in the morning, and when the Professor added a bit of nonverbal emphasis to his tirade by dashing a cup of pineapple juice in the Skipper's face, he decided that it would probably be a good idea to be elsewhere. Ducking into his hut, however, was no escape. Someone had apparently decided that their crates of emergency foodstuffs had not liked the climate in the storage cave, and would be far happier in his hut. As a finishing touch, one particularly large dried salt fish was lying comfortably in each hammock. The expression in the glassy eyes was smug.

"Psst. Hey, Skipper," hissed a voice from the rear window. Gilligan. Of course. "It's okay. I grabbed a few more blankets and your spare clothes when I saw them carting in the fish. They're in the cave already. I don't know about _you_ , but _I'm_ getting out of here while I still—oops!"

A red streak vanished into the jungle, a respectable distance ahead of Ginger, who was handicapped by her shoes. She shrugged, turned to the Skipper. "I knew you wouldn't mind if we put the extra space to use," she said sweetly. "After all, the Professor lives in the supply hut, and you don't hear him complaining."

The Professor, the Skipper did not say, had left of his own volition, probably because he couldn't stand the nighttime chatter to which he, the Skipper, had grown inured, and not because he'd suddenly been saddled with some very fragrant roommates.

"Oh, of course not," he said dryly. "Who doesn't like bunking in a delicatessen?" He didn't wait for an answer; just turned and stalked away, hoping sourly that the other five had all strained their backs wrestling those crates into his hut.

OoOoOoO

"Hey, Skipper?"

"What is it, Gilligan?"

"Next time, do you think maybe we should try dressing up like headhunters, after all?"

"Little buddy," the Skipper sighed, trying to find a position on the cave floor that wasn't as wretchedly uncomfortable as all the others he had tried. "Little buddy, next time, I think I'm just going to jump into the ocean and swim for it. Let them fight it out amongst themselves."

"I'm with you on that one," Gilligan said. "How long do you think we'll have to stay out here?"

"I don't know. Probably not more than twenty years or so."

"… Skipper?"

"Yeah?"

"We don't have a calendar or anything. How will we know when the twenty years are up?"

"Go to sleep!"

OoOoOoO

The next afternoon, two men approached the communal table. The two headhunters were painted with gaudy designs over most of the visible portions of their bodies. One—small and slender—had patterns of lightning bolts across his face, and down his arms and scrawny chest. The other—taller, and obviously not one to say 'no' to seconds whenever they were offered, and possibly even when they weren't—favored multicolored bands; perhaps he'd been told that vertical stripes were slimming.

Mary Ann, starting to set the table for dinner, rolled her eyes when she saw them. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she said. "Oh, well, as long as you're here, you might as well make yourselves useful. Here." She shoved her stack of plates at the smaller one, then picked up the bamboo canister that held their silverware and handed it to the larger one. "Start setting the table," she said briefly. "Forks go on the left; knife and spoon on the right, unless you _want_ Mrs. Howell to cry, of course."

The headhunters looked at each other. The big one shrugged, and made a 'go ahead' gesture with the hand not holding the cutlery. The little one gave Mary Ann a wary look, but obediently started setting the table. Mary Ann, still trying to look stern, shook her head like a disappointed kindergarten teacher and went back to the kitchen.

"Oh, Ginger—you'll never guess what they're trying _now_ ," Mary Ann said, stifling a giggle.

Ginger looked up from the fruit she was arranging on a platter. "Who? Oh— you mean Skipper and Gilligan? What's their new plan?"

"They're all dressed up as natives," Mary Ann said. "Grass skirts, half a pound of war paint apiece, skull necklaces, and everything! It's the funniest thing you've ever seen in your life."

Ginger laughed. "They're really getting desperate, aren't they?"

"They must be. Oh, and better be careful where you look; let me just say that they'd better hope it doesn't get too breezy tonight and leave it at that."

Ginger raised her eyebrows. "I'll take that to mean that you weren't being entirely careful where _you_ were looking, shall I?"

Mary Ann turned a bit pink. "Never mind that," she said, with what dignity she could muster. "I just acted like nothing was wrong and told them to set the table. I'll finish up in here if you'll go tell the Howells and the Professor what to expect."

"Cannibals at the table," Ginger said with a smile. "Certainly gives a new meaning to the idea of having company for dinner."

OoOoOoO

The forks—horror of horrors—were on the right. Mrs. Howell, bravely, did not quite swoon. "Oh, good heavens, Thurston, we're eating like savages!" she mourned.

"Well, Lovey, darling, that does rather seem to be the theme of tonight's dinner. Speaking of which… Would you pass the salt, Mr. Cannibal Headhunter?"

The larger man, who was sitting on the bench beside the billionaire and looking more than a bit bemused, ignored the request.

"I say, old man," Mr. Howell repeated, a bit louder, and nudging him in a conveniently unpainted rib for good measure. "Could you pass the salt?"

He started, and his hand went to the machete at his waist.

"The _salt_ , good fellow," Mr. Howell repeated, pointing at it. The headhunters traded a look; this time the smaller one shrugged. The larger man, slowly and a bit uncertainly, picked up the bowl of salt and handed it to Mr. Howell.

"Thank you," he said, with an eloquent eye roll. "Only had to ask three times. I say, Lovey, if it's carrots for good eyesight, what might you have to eat for good hearing? Corn, wouldn't you say? Because it grows in ears! Ha! That was rather witty, if I do say so myself," he chuckled.

"Oh, yes, yes, marvelously clever, darling," Mrs. Howell said. "It's just a pity we don't have any."

"Unfortunately for us, _Zea mays_ doesn't really grow in this climate," the Professor said casually. He glanced at the smaller headhunter, expecting at any moment a comment along the lines of either, 'Yeah, and there's no corn in these islands, either,' or possibly 'Zea Mays? Is he related to Willie Mays?'

The smaller of the ersatz 'headhunters' didn't say anything at all, somewhat to the Professor's disappointment; he was too busy shoveling down coconut soufflé with every indication of intense enjoyment. He didn't seem to mind that the forks were misplaced; in fact, he wasn't bothering with his fork at all. He finished his piece, licked his sticky fingers—Mrs. Howell could not quite contain a small moue of very ladylike revulsion—and reached across the table for more.

Ginger muttered to Mary Ann, "I think they're taking Method acting a bit far," and gave his freshly 'cleaned' hand a sharp slap before he could plunge it into the dish. "Shame on you! Didn't your mother teach you any manners at all?"

He jerked his hand away and cradled it in his other hand. He still didn't say anything, just stared at her, shocked and a bit hurt.

"Yes, just because you're uncivilized, it doesn't mean you have to behave like barbarians," Mrs. Howell added. Whether or not she noticed the irony was debatable.

"We do have to make allowances, my dear; where these chaps are from, 'finger food' has a very different meaning, eh, my good man?" said Mr. Howell, nudging the larger man in that same unpainted rib. He smirked at his own joke, and at the expression of stunned outrage spreading across the man's face.

He abruptly stopped smirking when the man stood up, put his hand to his machete again and half-drew it from its sheath. Mary Ann reached across the table and slapped _his_ hand, much as Ginger had done. "That's quite enough of that," she said. "If you need a knife, there's one on the table. Sit down and behave yourself!"

Now it was the larger man's turn to look shocked. The smaller headhunter turned to him with an imploring, the-jig-is-up-can-we-stop-now sort of grimace. The larger man glared quellingly at him, then gritted his teeth, slid the machete back into its sheath and sat down.

"Come now, Captain; a joke's a joke, but don't you think enough is enough?" Mr. Howell was rapidly losing patience with the game, especially now that machetes entered the picture. "We all get it. Yes, you're headhunters. Terribly frightening. Now could you do us all a favor? Go wash your faces… and for the love of God, man, put on some trousers!"

"What are you talking about, Howell?"

Five heads swiveled towards the source of the voice, just emerging from the jungle. It wasn't one man, it turned out; it was two. One small and slender. The other taller and stockier. Both, it need hardly be said, were fully clothed.

"Hey, you guys ate without us?" The smaller of the two figures sounded hurt. "I didn't think you were _that_ mad."

Slowly, in a synchronized movement they would have been hard-pressed to duplicate under any other circumstances, five castaways dragged their gaze from the two men standing at the edge of the clearing and turned to stare at the two men still sitting at the table, their painted faces unamused. The Skipper and Gilligan followed their lead, and got their first look at their dinner guests. Again in lockstep unison, seven people shrieked, then vanished into the jungle so quickly that they broke several speeding ordinances, if not the laws of physics, in the process. As an aside, and as a point of no specific relevance, Ginger screamed in a piercing coloratura soprano, hitting notes that she had had to work with a voice coach for the better part of a year to attain. It must be noted, however, that Mr. Howell did the same, and with no prior experience whatsoever.

 _"Haruka was wrong_ ," said the smaller one to his comrade in their own language. " _These people are insane_."

 _"That's for sure_ ," replied the larger man, grimacing as he rubbed the place he had been poked. " _I'll admit these girls are good cooks, but aside from that, they'd make lousy wives. I say we get out of here while we still can_."

 _"The sooner the better,"_ agreed the small one. " _I'm not about to come home from a hard day's work and have to wonder if my mate is going to kiss me or kill me."_

The larger man nodded wry agreement as they rose from the table. " _Wait a minute,"_ he said to his companion, and picked up the dish with the remaining half of the soufflé. " _It's a long canoe ride back home_ ," he said reasonably. " _Might as well bring a snack for the trip."_

 _"Good idea,"_ said the smaller man. " _Now let's get the heck out of here before those lunatics come back. This place isn't safe for decent, everyday guys like us!"_

OoOoOoO

"So… nobody's mad anymore?"

"I can only speak for myself, my dear boy, but I rather think not. I don't know about anyone else, but poking a cannibal in the ribs has rather blunted any desire I might have felt to continue arguing with anyone," Mr. Howell shuddered. "I might have been fileted!"

"You wouldn't have been a filet, darling," Mrs. Howell comforted. "Tenderloin at the very least."

His expression was not precisely indicative of unmixed delight at the compliment, but he took it as he was certain it had been intended, and patted her arm. "Thank you, Lovey."

"Anyhow, we all acted a bit silly," Mary Ann admitted. "I can't even quite remember what we were all arguing about to begin with."

"Hmm, is that so? I certainly remember, but I'd hardly want to go into it in front of everyone," Ginger said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mary Ann said, in a completely different tone, putting her hands on her hips.

The Professor sighed in annoyance. "Girls, please! Is this display of childish emotion really necessary?"

"Oh, who asked you?"

"Yes; why don't you mind your own business?"

"Women! So temperamental!"

"Thurston, I don't think I like your tone!"

"Lovey! Whose side are you on?"

Gilligan looked from one castaway to another, all around the circle, and back at the Skipper. "Oh, no. Not again," he moaned, with an expression like a kicked puppy dog.

The Skipper just sighed, and jerked his thumb towards the jungle. As they slipped away from the others, Gilligan looked up at his buddy and tried to smile. "You said, 'probably not more than twenty years,' right?"

"I sure did, little buddy," the Skipper replied, trying not to think about another night—or possibly twenty years of nights; it really could go either way—sleeping on the cold stone floor of a cave. "And compared to this three ring circus, it'll be a picnic!"

"You're not kidding," Gilligan said. "You think we should try to invite the headhunters back?"

"No, but if they _do_ come back, maybe I can get them to take us with them."

Gilligan grinned. "Going to 'thumb' a ride with a cannibal?"

 _Thwack_ went the Skipper's cap, but that was really no more than might have been expected.


End file.
